Food production and population control

From Mirror

Sunday Post Newspaper

 

 Two news items came out in the papers, this week, one locally and the other in the national broadsheet. Though they did not merit headline treatment, they are neither the less important. The news in the Post said the Bohol would become the rice center of the region while the other announced that the reproductive health bill is to be taken up in the plenary session. Both are complementary.

 With the expanding irrigation facilities, Bohol is nearing self sufficient in rice and when the controversial Talibon irrigation will be completed, the province will become the rice-producing center of the region, Region VII to be specific. There are other islands in the Philippines, which could out produce Bohol in terms of rice. There is the Northeastern and Central Luzon. However, industrialization and urbanization are eating into their rice lands. There are no more land areas that could be opened up to replace lost paddies.

 One cannot be too sure of rice production in Mindanao.  The peace and order problem is not conducive to agricultural production or any production whatsoever. Too many productive lands developed by Christian settlers are claimed by Muslims as their ancestral home, though is was never theirs and had no hand in developing those lands. However, if order can be restored, there, the second biggest island of the Philippines might out produce Luzon in terms of rice.

 Even if Luzon and Mindanao will realize their full potential in the production of staple cereals, distribution would still be a problem. With our present transporting facilities, conveying large volume of supplies to cereal scarce areas is not easy especially during times of disaster. It is imperative that the middle islands would attain relative self-sufficiency and to maintain buffer stock to carry them over during typhoon seasons. Thus the development of Bohol rice industry is welcome news.

 On the other hand, even if rice production attains its maximum capacity, this will not be enough if we do not curb our runaway population growth. Land mass will not grow so no more food producing areas can be developed. The Malthusian theory that the growth of food production is inversely proportional to population growth is no longer a theory but a fact.

 The reproductive health bill has passed the committee and is now presented to the plenary for deliberation. In the present unitary system of government, the majority of our elected representatives cannot resist arm-twisting techniques exerted by sectors against the bill. The bill could be defeated by those, whose political career depends upon the goodwill of the Church. If our system had been federal, where each federal region would determine its own destiny, not all federal regions would follow the Church line so the Church took a stand against federalism.

 Since it is the government, which is responsible for feeding people, which can no longer feed itself, it must be the government that will look for solutions, such as balancing food and population growth. Then the government, its elected representatives in particular must be left alone to find the solution. The aim of the bill is contraception not abortion.

 If the Church must have its say the Church must not be only concerned with the religion of the Filipino but its culture as well. The biological urge is a powerful force that even men of the cloth succumb to it. The non-permissive culture looks down upon the single mother so abortions would be rife among the young. And when families can no longer bear the effects of poverty, they resort to infanticides and suicides. This had never been the case when the Filipino was only twelve million or twenty million. This could be the handwriting on the wall. If only the rhythm is acceptable, the Church must undertake and extensive and intensive education campaign on the mechanics of this technique.